Finally digging up the roots of Mighty Joe Thunder

One of the biggest mysteries from those hazy memories of Saturday wrestling on the old Channel 56 in Boston is whatever became of a wrestler known as Mighty Joe Thunder. Never mind what became of him, I was never sure where he came from.

Actually, the Online World of Wrestling, which I visited for the first time this week, has a bit about the history of Thunder. He wrestled prior to his WWF debut under names such as Giant Evans and Rip Miller.

All I remember about Thunder was that Capt. Lou Albano served as his manager in 1982 and Thunder was terrible. He looked like a thin Gorilla Monsoon and may have used a heart punch as a finisher. He didn’t last more than a couple of months’ worth of TV shows – in fact, the Online World of Wrestling notes Thunder “ended up being so bad he was fired after a handful of TV tapings.”